Moving from Bear

Bring your Bear notes

Your Bear notes can come with you, with their tags, links and dates. It takes one export and one import, and Bear keeps its own copy.

Four steps

1. In Bear on the Mac, choose Show All Notes from the View menu (⌥⌘1). Click the note list and press ⌘A to select every note.
2. Choose Export from the File menu (⇧⌘S), pick Markdown and save the export in a new folder. Include attachments, so your images come too.
3. In Beyond Notes, open Settings and choose Import a Folder of Notes. Pick the folder you just saved.
4. Beyond Notes reads every .md file in it, copies the images into Attachments and tells you about any image it could not find.

Bear can export on iPhone and iPad too. Save the export to a folder in Files and import it the same way.

What comes along

Tags

Your #tags stay in the text, nested tags included, and appear in the sidebar.

Links between notes

[[Note links]] keep working, and each note shows which notes link to it.

Dates

Each note keeps the created and modified dates its exported file carries.

Images

Images from Bear's attachment folders are copied into Attachments beside your notes.

Tasks and highlights

Tasks written as - [ ] stay tickable, and ==highlights== stay highlighted.

What works differently

Each note is a .md file in iCloud Drive, in a folder called Beyond Notes. Open it in Files or Finder and the notes are there.

Tag icons do not come across. Beyond Notes gives a new tag an icon by itself when a word fits, and you can change any of them to a symbol or emoji.

Every feature is free for a month, starting the first time you write. After that, writing needs Beyond Notes Pro, at $1.99 a month, $14.99 a year or $39.99 once. Reading, search, copy and export always work.

Questions

Does importing change my notes in Bear?

No. Bear exports a copy, and Beyond Notes imports from that copy. Your notes in Bear stay as they are.

Can I import notes from apps other than Bear?

Yes. Beyond Notes imports any folder of .md, .markdown or .txt files, with their tags and dates.

What if an image is missing after the import?

Beyond Notes lists the images it could not find, so you can drop them into those notes yourself. If you get stuck, write to support and a person will reply.

See how Beyond Notes, Bear, iA Writer and Apple Notes differ in the comparison, or read the manual on importing.